In a moment of self-indulgent nerdiness, I spent a fair amount of time scouring the Internet and figuring out how to extract the dragon shouts from Skyrim. These directions could also be used to extract anything. Hopefully this post helps someone who was as lost as I was.

1. Download BSA Unpacker, Voice file extractor, and xWMAEncode.
2. Use BSA Unpacker and point it at Skyrim – Voices.bsa. It’s in the Skryim\data folder.
3. Look through and find all the files you want to extract. For the shouts, for example, I extracted everything that started with maleeventoned/voicepowers_.
4. Extract everything to its own folder.
5. To convert one .fuz file to a .wav, do:

   fuz_extractor.exe -e file.fuz
   xWMAEncode.exe file.xwm file.wav

Basically how this works is that fuz_extractor pulls out the .lip and .xwm from the .fuz, and then xWMAEncode converts the .xwm to a .wav file.

Now obviously this is tedious for some eighty-odd files, so I used PowerShell, a really useful scripting tool that comes with Windows. Here’s the script I ran:

cd c:\shouts
foreach($f in $(gci C:\shouts | % {$_.BaseName})) {
    .\fuz_extractor.exe -e $f.fuz
    .\xWMAEncode.exe $f.xwm $f".wav"
}

And then just let it run. You’ll have to tweak it to fit your own setup, but that’s how I did it. Once you’ve got your .wav files, you can do whatever you want with them. You could run them right through an MP3 encoder and get MP3s, or you could edit them in Audacity.

I wonder if Adam Sandler just really hates his career. For awhile there he was doing serious films that people actually liked (Funny People, Punch-Drunk Love, Reign Over Me),  and then he goes and does Jack and Jill? Seriously? Does he just hate himself or something?

I look forward to reading the stellar reviews this film is sure to get.

Walk anywhere in Manhattan and you’re bound to cross paths with someone who’s trying to convert you. The guys in the Times Square station who hand out the Chick tracts are probably the most well known, but on any random day you can get a pamphlet about how Santa is the devil or about how the country is run by a new world order. The station where I transfer for work has been targeted by Jews for Jesus.

My question is, do these people really see any return for their efforts? Do they have followers who have converted after receiving some poorly made flyer? I sure as hell hope not, but if they do, I’d be curious to meet these people. Personally I can’t imagine being that easily swayed by what some crazy person hands me as I’m walking to the platform, but maybe other people are that gullible? Maybe. I don’t know.

Wow, it’s been awhile since I last write. Uhh.. I went on vacation for a week, got a new job, and things have been better – if rather busy.

Anyway, this post isn’t about that. What this post is about is that I sometimes forget that there are terrible people out there. Case in point: the other weekend, we went to a meetup a few blocks from where I live. Some decent people there, but there was this one girl who was just… a train wreck. Aside from being very open about her love for psychedelic drugs, she was also your standard stereotypical fangirl. “I’m really into Invader Zim! I love GIR, squee!” Urgh. Thanks for playing.

I guess going to work and being surrounded by intelligent human beings acts as sort of a barrier from the actual weirdos out there.

Anyway. Hopefully I’ll post more!

It was recently announced that Ubi is planning to do a film adaptation of Assassin’s Creed. As movies based on games tend to be totally perfectly cast, here are my predictions as to who they’ll tap. Hell, I’ll write this for both AC1 and AC2:

• Desmond Miles: Shia Lebouf. Gotta start this thing off on the right foot! And he’s such a great actor.
  Runners up: Chris Evans; Michael Cera.
• Lucy Stillman: Angelina Jolie. I mean, yeah, maybe Lucy was voiced and looked like Kristen Bell, but we can change that. This role involves running!
  Runners up: Megan Fox; Natalie Portman.
• Altair: Jake Gyllenhaal.  That guy can act, right? He’s already played one brown guy from that part of the world, surely he can do it again.
  Runners up: Shia Lebouf; The Rock.
• Al Mualim: Mark Strong. Name one time where Mark Strong played anything other than the bad guy. … Right, exactly.
  Runners up: Nicolas Cage.
• Warren Vidic: Matthew Fox. Take away all that good karma he got from Lost and what’s left? An evil scientist.
  Runners up: Michael Emerson.
• Ezio Auditore: Jay Baruchel. Did you see his performance in that one movie? Or that other one?
  Runners up: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Bartha.
• Rodrigo Borgia: Robert Downey, Jr. Already the greatest actor of all time, here’s his chance to play the antagonist.
  Runners up: Jeremy Irons.
• Cesare Borgia: Ralph Fiennes. Sure, why not. I don’t even know.
• Leonardo da Vinci: Nicolas Cage. Now here’s a good actor who can pull off the Italian accent necessary for this role.
• Shaun Hastings: Russell Brand. He’s our comedic relief to the otherwise serious story.
  Runners up: Dominic Monaghan.
• Rebecca Crane: Eliza Dushku. She can pretend like she can use a computer, I think.
  Runners up: Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Oh man, I hope even half of these are true. Imagine the money I’ll rake in from this bet!